Tag Archives: Pi

Roman depiction of the Tiber as a river-god (Tiberinus) with cornucopia at the Campidoglio, Rome. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I must admit a certain love for the Raspberry Pi – we have two in the house just now – one which was doing a service as an XMBC box onto the TV ( something it was OK at, but not great – now replaced by a PS3, which just works better and I can play BioShock1 on it too ) and a second which was left by Santa in order to take up a role as a Python training device for the smaller members of the household ( although, having discovered yesterday Raspberry Pi Assembly Language Beginners: Hands On Guide: 1 and RISC OS for Pi2 they may well find themselves learning Assembly instead ). With the retirement of the first Pi from media player duties though, I’ve started to contemplate what it might become – it doesn’t pack a huge amount of punch, but for all of that, it’s small, light and exceedingly power efficient – so much so, it is feasible to run it from batteries.

A few years ago I went through a similar Mini-ITX phase, building a small footprint machine which ran very serviceably ( and the components still do I believe – they were carved up for an Arcade project which is still uncompleted [ although the controller with two good arcade joysticks and some good buttons to thump was running very nicely over USB with MAME and Gauntlet ! Anyhoo, I digress more than usual ] ) at the time I was frequenting the rather good Mini-ITX.com and enjoying their project pages ( sadly no longer updated much – they used to be fun … ) – they had a link to “The Janus Project” – a self-contained wireless security test rig in a Pelican case.

Now I always liked this idea, didn’t have the money or the time, but I thought it was cool. Well, time and technology wait for no man, and since then we have had much in the way of efficiency and miniaturisation, not to mention some much more refined ways of cracking WiFi. To this end, I have intent to build a mini-Janus, a son of Janus – “The Tiberinus3 Project” if you will.

Given that time has moved on so much though, I find, that I have an opportunity to work on a smaller scale, and to be portable … So to that end, I have started to assemble the parts – to wit :

1 x Raspberry Pi, OS & SD Card

1 x Power Source ( 12000mAH battery pack )

1 x GPS dohicky

2 x WiFi dohickys

1 x 3G Modem

1 x Waterproof Case

1 x USB Hub

The idea is to contain all of the above in a box which will be self contained for a period ( 12000mah – not sure, but reckon in excess of 8 hours runtime, although that will depend on the peripherals … ) and to be fairly autonomous in the collection of data – e.g. while it is on, it will constantly seek out WiFi sources. This device can then be left comfortably on client site for a period to perform an unobtrusive wireless audit as part of a PenTest. There are currently two WiFi dongles on the list, rather simply one to scan and one to manage, although, depending on the power consumption, it may be possible to run more than two through a powered USB hub, or to run two in scanning mode and leaving management out of the issue, or possibly even use the 3G Modem over USB to provide managment, and use two to scan … All an experimental theory at the moment !

Obviously, you should try this at home – what’s the point in writing it up otherwise – but remember the various legal requirements surrounding ( in the UK4 at least ) the Computer Misuse Act – you shouldn’t make use of anyone’s computer systems without their prior authorisation.

Parts are on order, and I’ll update as things assemble ! ( For the record though, I’ve been looking at doing some of the development work on the QEMU Pi Emulator … Not sure how that’s going to pan out either … )

1. A game I _really_ enjoy, although, like most games – I suck. I’ve also been infuriated by the constant delays surrounding BioShock Infinite which has switched from a birthday present to a Christmas present and back again since it was supposed to be released …

2. My Junior School had just switched to Archimedes computers when I left, the Senior was RM IBM drclones. I actually never really got to play with them properly, although they always held a certain fascination – I’ve eyed up various 2nd hand bits of kit in the Vintage section of E-Bay, and have even bid, but never to a winning outcome – the port to Pi has got me all of a flutter !

3. “One tradition states that he came from Thessaly and that he was welcomed by Camese in Latium, where they shared a kingdom. They married and had several children, among which the river god Tiberinus (after whom the river Tiber is named).” – Encyclopaedia Mythica – I would so love to claim I knew that, but it was Google.

4. Other countries are available, and I could even recommend one or two as being nice places to go. However, make sure that what you are doing is acceptable under your local jurisdiction – fines, prison or worse awaits those who overstep the mark.